Page:Lives of Poets-Laureate.djvu/269

Rh In a paper in "The Tatler," Steele has a sly joke on the premature fate of this play. Among the items in a theatrical inventory are "The imperial robes of Xerxes, never worn but once." In fact, our author evidently mistook his powers if he expected to excel in tragedy, for which neither his studies nor the original constitution of his mind, in the least degree, fitted him.

In the following year (1700), he had a salve for his wounded vanity in the great success of his new comedy of "Love makes the Man, or the Fop's Fortune," which was brought out at Drury Lane. In the same year, he altered Shakespeare's "King Richard III." for the stage; but the licenser cut out the whole of the first act, not allowing "the small indulgence of a speech or two, that the other four acts might limp on with a little less absurdity." This slashing application of the knife was occasioned by the zeal of the Master of the Revels for the existing order of things, fearing lest the people might be reminded by the miseries of King Henry VI. of the condition of their exiled King James; so firm, at that time, was Whig reliance in the vaunted popularity of the glorious Revolution.

The division among the players, which we shall enter into more particularly in a succeeding page, had been attended with serious results to both parties. Free trade in the drama was, by no means, a successful experiment in those days; and the miseries to which the two companies were reduced by their competition has been graphically depicted by Cibber himself, who was one of the sufferers. The actors were seldom paid more than half their nominal salaries, and sometimes performed for six weeks together without receiving a day's pay; and Cibber, in these straits, found the proceeds of his pen a most welcome supply. "It may be observable, too," says he, "that my muse and my spouse were equally prolific,